The Greenville News from Greenville, South Carolina • Page 36

2B greenvilleonline.com The Greenville News with military ordnance cierai Thomas hopes to end car, property tax Budget shortfall makes others wary Amtrak East Coast schedule snarled By Bruce Smith The Associated Press NORTH CHARLESTON Thirteen rail cars, including three carrying military ordnance, derailed during a switching operation at a rail yard, snarling Amtrak service across the East Coast. But there were no injuries or evacuations, officials said Friday. The cars derailed as workers were trying to switch them to another track around 7:15 p.m. Thursday, CSX spokeswoman Jane Covington said. Three cars carried military ordnance, while a tank car contained a nonhazar-dous chemical used in the paper industry.

The other cars were empty, she said. The accident happened at the end of the busy rail yard flanked on one side by an industrial area. Bordering the other side is a neighborhood of modest homes and at least two schools. The derailment disrupted Amtrak service along the East Coast. Four trains had been canceled by Friday afternoon while four others, including two Auto Trains, were rerouted through Columbia, about 120 miles to the west, said Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel.

Passengers on a north- BRAD NETTLES The Post and Courier No injuries: Workers survey a derailed train in North Charleston Friday morning. Thirteen rail cars, including three carrying military ordnance, derailed during a switching operation at the rail yard, snarling Amtrak service. said it was being transferred from Sunny Point, N.C, to the Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek, just outside Charleston. "The things they go through to package the munitions for shipping is aimed at keeping the public safe and the munitions safe and keeping property safe while it is being shipped," Kling said. "We go to great pains in packing it and shipping it." Authorities refused to say if any of the ordnance fell out of the cars.

They Later in the afternoon, she said military personnel were still waiting for a hopper car to be cleared away so they could inspect the three derailed cars carrying the ordnance. "These are not armed pieces of ordnance. It's not shipped like that. It's not shipped and ready to fire," said Capt. Joe Kling, commander of the Army's 748th ordnance Company based at Fort Jackson in Columbia.

Kling refused to describe exactly what kind of ordnance was in the cars, but Some question Sanford's income tax logic By Tim Smith Capital Bureau COLUMBIA Sen. David Thomas of Fountain Inn and a group of Senate Republicans will propose legislation next week to eliminate car and property taxes within the next year, Thomas said Friday. Thomas, a Republican who chairs the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, would not say where the money will come from or release other details of the plan before next week. Thomas proposed last year that lawmakers raise the sales tax by two cents to end taxes on vehicles and homes. "The whole thing has completely gotten out of hand," he said Friday.

"The bottom line is as people see their ad valorem or property taxes go through the roof with increases in assessments and increases in car values, the taxes seem to be disproportionately going beyond people's incomes." Thomas said his plan would eliminate taxes on owner-occupied homes and personal cars and trucks within a year of passage. An official estimated last year that raising the sales tax by two cents would produce slightly more than $1 billion. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat who sits on the House budget-writing committee, said one of her chief concerns is that any tax-relief plan address what impact it will have on local government and school operations so that "it doesn't result in an unstable source of revenue for funding schools." Residents were pleased by the prospect of a tax cut, but the proposal faces questions about its impact. "I'll take tax relief wherever it can come from," said Barry Cannon, of Greenville "I think we're taxed enough already." Steve Martin, of Greenville, shares that sentiment.

"I can't object to no property tax or car tax," he said. "I don't know how that would be made up for I'm not a big spender, so that might not be a bad thing. But, as far as flat out no property tax and no vehicle tax that's fine!" Thomas said he believes the proposal has the support of the majority of Senate Republicans and can be passed if it gets out of committee. But other lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, voiced concerns Friday over the proposal, which must compete with at least two other plans for cutting vehicle andor property taxes. House Majority Leader Rick Quinn, who has helped craft a tax reform proposal which removes some sales tax exemptions, said Thomas' plan, while similar, would shift the tax burden to business and would not address the issue of education inequity between affluent and poor school "With the coffers of government so dry and needs so great, I don't see anything passing that doesn't somehow address our deficits such as education." Sen.

John Land, D-Manning "He totally exposes business," Quinn said. "In the future, business will be totally responsible for all functions for local government. And part of the problem is we have one of the highest taxes on vehicles as well as on business. My plan would affect both." Greenville resident Catherine Stevens is a little skeptical. "Politicians like to make promises I want them to know how they're going to pay for something before they make promises," she said.

"A lot of times when they say 'We're going to do this way and I have it all figured out' those numbers are so big some of them might think the money's abstract because it's not hurting them." Cobb-Hunter also said she is unconvinced that citizens are demanding the elimination of car taxes, which lawmakers have already reduced in the last decade. "I don't know that there is a groundswell out there," she said. Sen. John Land, a Manning Democrat who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, said whatever Thomas' plan contains, debate about such plans should force lawmakers to examine if their priority is cutting taxes instead of providing services. "With the coffers of government so dry and needs so great, I don't see anything passing that doesn't somehow address our deficits such as education," Land said.

"If we're going to give any tax breaks to anybody, we're just going to have to make a policy decision that that's our interest, that's our top priority." Technically, the Legislature cannot eliminate all property taxes. Cities, counties and school districts are allowed by the state Constitution to levy property taxes to repay debt, such as bonds for school construction. But legislators can eliminate by statute the taxes currently levied for operations of schools and local government. Thomas said lawmakers might choose one of the other tax relief plans. But he said he thinks citizens will like his proposal.

"Ultimately, I think people will be happy with the kind of tax relief we're bringing to them under our proposal," he said. "In fact, I would think they would be ecstatic about it." Staff writer Jolene Gatas contributed to this article. Economists say state taxes are average or lower said none of the liquid leaked from the tanker car. Covington said the cause of the derailment is being investigated and said she could not estimate how long it might take to clean up the tracks, which are along one of the main north-south Amtrak routes on the East Coast. Emergency personnel from at least five state and local agencies responded.

"Any hazardous material incident, no matter how large or how small, we play it by the numbers," said North Charleston Fire Chief Al Rissanen. A report by the University of South Carolina says the overall tax burden here is lower than in most states. It found while citizens paid a slightly higher portion of their income in state taxes, they pay significantly less in local taxes. But Sanford said taxes aren't the only burden the state levies. Fees the state imposes are the third highest in the nation per $1,000 in personal income, according to Sanford's office, which cited 1999 Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

"We've shifted a lot of things over to fees that other states pay for by taxes," he said. For taxpayers, there's little distinction between taxes and fees, Sanford said. A 5-year-old boy then picked up the weapon and gave it to the bus driver, Lewis said. The 8-year-old boy's father had put in gun in a storage shed for safekeeping after taking the gun away from a group of teens, deputies said. School officials say they will discipline the boy, who said he was taking the gun to school because he had been bullied.

The father will not face criminal charges, deputies said. Adjusting for lower incomes, South Carolinians pay less in state income taxes, according to Census Bureau data examined by The (Columbia) State. The state collected an average $475 for every man, woman and child in 2002, or 1.9 percent of per capita income. With a U.S. average of 2.1 percent, South Carolina ranked 35th among 43 states with income taxes.

But Sanford said that was an aberration that showed up as the economy struggled through recession. "They picked out a single year after 911 and they left off the other nine years," Sanford said. Those other nine years show the state's average income taxes are higher than the national average, Sanford said. The Associated Press COLUMBIA Gov. Mark Sanford's claims that the state's income tax rates are the highest in the Southeast and impeding economic growth are raising questions with economists.

During his State of the State speech Wednesday, the Republican governor said his top priority in the Legislature this year is lowering the state's top income tax rate from 7 percent to 5.9 percent. "Our income tax is effectively the highest income tax rate in the entire Southeast, and that's rough on families, it's rough on retir bound Amtrak which had arrived at the end of the yard were bused to Washington D.C. And one southbound train was stopped in Fayetteville, N.C., and pas-sengers bused past Charleston to Jacksonville, N.C. There were no evacuations because of the accident, which occurred just down the tracks from an overpass which carries busy Interstate 26 into Charleston. "There is absolutely no immediate danger," Covington told reporters around noon Friday.

ees and it's rough on working folks," he said during his speech. But University of South Carolina economist Doug Woodward said South Carolinians pay close to the U.S. average among states with income taxes. North Carolina has a top rate of 8.25 percent until 2006. Other states in the region have no income tax or rates below South Carolina's rate.

But Sanford said North Carolina's top rate affects people who make $120,000 a year or more less than 2 percent of South Carolina's taxpayers, Sanford said. "There are only plenty of flu cases in parts of the state, including the Charleston area, where the illness hit hardest this winter. Officials report that people still need to be vigilant to avoid spreading the flu. But the state says the flu season is past its peak and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downgraded the outbreak in South Carolina from widespread to regional. The flu, which usually peaks in January, appears to have been at its worst much Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty when the sentencing phase of the trial begins on Saturday.

Defense attorneys Peter Johnson and Jacque Hawk, who had sought a verdict of guilty but mentally ill, were expected to try to persuade the jury to sentence Rivera to life in prison. Rivera, 40, of North Augusta, S.C., also is accused of another slaying in Georgia and twojteaths in Aiken County, S.C Regardless of DHEC: Flu season appears to be past peak, but not over Police: 8-year-old took gun on to school bus 000 people in the entire state that make more than $120,000," Sanford said. Sanford also doesn't like that South Carolina charges its highest tax rate to anyone making $12,000 or more. He said that makes it hard for the state to attract companies and nurture small businesses. "I'd like to receive evidence that (lowering income taxes) would spur economic growth," Woodward said.

"I've never seen that income taxes are significant deterrent to investment." Sanford said the people who make decisions to move operations to South Carolina know the impact on their wallets and their corporate budgets of putting an extra 1.1 percent of their income into taxes. earlier this season. DHEC reports only four new laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza following a steady increase since the flu season's early start in October. In December, 15 percent of patients in a sampling of doctors' offices across the state had flu-like illnesses. That's now down to less than 3 percent, said Dr.

Tom Fabian, DHEC's influenza surveillance coordinator. But officials have stressed more time remains in the flu season and some areas still could see surges in the illness. the sentence in the Glista case, District Attorney Danny Craig said he likely will pursue capital murder charges in Columbia County, where one of the victims, Tabitha Bosdell, was found. Barton survived Rivera's attack on her and gave information to investigators that led to his arrest. In closing arguments, Craig told jurors that Rivera is not mentally ill, in the legal sense of being unable to tell right from wrong, but a psychopath who abducted his victims to savagely rape, sodomize and butcher them.

The Associated Press CHARLESTON The worst of the flu season appears to have ended in South Carolina, but that doesn't mean the illness is completely gone, according to local and federal health officials. "The flu appears to be waning, but it's not over," said Dr. Robert Ball, infectious disease consultant with the Department of Health and Environmental Control's Trident Public Health District in the Low-country. Doctors are still seeing Woman dies in house fire The Associated Press WINNSBORO An 8-year-old boy brought a loaded gun on to a school bus Friday morning because he had been bullied, Fairfield County deputies say. No one was injured in the incident, authorities said.

The gun fell out of the boy's bookbag as the bus headed to Fairfield Primary School, Chief Deputy Keith Lewis said. murder Johnson argued that medical evidence showed that brain damage had rendered Rivera incapable of choosing the right and just things in life. He also repeated what Rivera had told the jurors: that doctors could study his mental illness and perhaps find a cure and prevention. "We want something good to come out of this, and that's why we talk of understanding," Johnscn said. Rivera is also accused in the 1999 deaths of Melissa Dingess and Tiffaney Wilson, both 17, in Aiken.

Rivera found guilty in rape Prosecutors to seek death penalty The Associated Press AUGUSTA, Ga. A man accused of raping and killing four young women in the Augusta area was convicted Friday of one of the murders and of attempting to kill a fifth victim. A Superior Court jury found Reinaldo Rivera guilty on 14 counts in the fatal Sept. 4, 2000 attack on Fort Gordon soldier Sgt. Marni M.

Glista, 21, and the Oct. 10, 2000 assault on Chrisifce Barton. MARK BRASINGTON Union Daily Times 10 departments responded: Deputy burning house in Union Friday, where Bobby Hicks with the Union County Sher- one person was killed after a trash fire iff's Office helps aim a fire hose at a burned out of control 1 i.